James Hillier has just returned from honeymoon in the Lake District.

He married Helen Davey in early August and the happy couple are off to Australia over Christmas and the new year, so they are doing pretty well!

But Hillier, who is preparing to captain Cheltenham Tigers for a sixth successive season, has another place to visit on his ‘to do’ list although it’s still very much in the ‘hopeful’ category at the moment.

That place is Twickenham, the home of English rugby, and Hillier doesn’t just want to visit, he wants to be centre stage at one of the great sporting venues in the world.

You see, Cheltenham have entered the RFU Intermediate Cup this season, a national knockout competition that clubs from Gloucestershire have always done well in over the years.

The final is at Twickenham at the end of the season and Hillier said: “We’d like to do well in that. We played Matson in the league with a weakened side a couple of times last season and did okay. They got to the final, so let’s go and give it a bash.

“We’ve won a couple of Combination cups in the last couple of years but this would be different.”

The competition was a high priority for Matson last season and they came very close to defeating Kenilworth at Twickenham just a few months ago.

Both Matson and Cheltenham play in Western Counties North, of course, and while the cup competitions will clearly be important to Cheltenham this season, Hillier is determined that they make a good showing in the league as well.

And based on their performances in the second half of last season they’ve got every chance of making a much better impression this time around.

After Christmas they won nine of their 12 league games – all with bonus points – with Hillier saying with some understatement that “it is promising”.

He’s right about that, of course, but he’s also understandably cautious because it has been a good few years since Cheltenham have mounted a real promotion challenge.

“We say it every year but we really do want to start making our mark in the league,” said Hillier, a back row or second row. “Last year we were awful in the first half of the season but then we signed a few players and everything turned around.

“We played Old Richians on the first day and the last day of the season and the two sides we put out couldn’t have been more different.”

Cheltenham lost the first game 23-19 but won the second game 31-5.

“We brought three or four new players into the backs and they gave us some firepower,” said Hillier, “our forwards have always been quite competitive.”

Not all of those mid-season signings will be with the club this season but Hillier is confident that the club have recruited well over the summer.

“It’s the strongest squad we’ve had going into a new season for a long time, we’ve got strength in depth,” the 27-year-old said.

“You need a strong united side so that you’ve got players competing for a 1st XV place. In the past there’s been a big gap between the strength of the 1st XV and the 2nd XV but that’s not the case now.

“We’ve got a squad of 35 players and I’d say 28 are competing for 1st team places.

“We need to be in the top four at Christmas and then assess from there. We’ve always been a nearly team – we’ve nearly clicked, we’ve nearly got it.

“I’ve been around long enough not to get too carried away but I’m very excited about the new season.”

The club are currently celebrating their 130th anniversary – they have a very rich history – so there is a real feelgood factor around Newlands at the moment.

“It’s amazing,” continued Hillier, “we’ve now got the calibre of players to achieve our potential.”

And Hillier is not just looking at the short-term, he is thinking a good number of years ahead as well.

“Long-term the goal is to get the men’s section at Cheltenham back to where we think it should be,” he said.

“We’ve got a group of players who are all roughly the same age and in 16 or 17 years’ time we want our kids to come in and be able to play for a really established set-up.

“We’ve left the Prince of Wales Stadium and we’ve now got a great pitch at Newlands. We can see the potential as can the players who were playing 10 years ago and who are now in their 40s.

“They want us to get back up to where we once were. We can all see the potential, now we have to execute it, it’s very exciting.”

It certainly is and for Hillier this season is also something of a milestone because he will equal the record held by Geoffrey Unwin and Maurice Hamlin for number of consecutive seasons as captain of the club.

Unwin led the side for six consecutive seasons at the start of the 20th century, including the game against the All Blacks in 1905, while Hamlin was in charge in the late 70s and early 80s, a period that covered the club’s move from the Athletic Ground to the Prince of Wales Stadium.

And Hillier said of joining those two illustrious names: “I knew I was getting somewhere close,” before adding with a laugh, “but it’s been a long time!”